Time Won't Find the Lost
by ainokitsune
Summary: In 2006, Sam walks away from his brother and heads to California to find their father. He winds up going a lot farther than he intended.  Dark themes, note warnings.


_Note: This was inspired by the 2nd season episode 'Hunted,' _in which Gordon reminisces about torturing a demon and killing the host in the process, and Dean is horrified and appalled. That amused me a lot.

Warnings: Torture, language, dark themes

* * *

><p>Time Won't Find the Lost<p>

* * *

><p><em>We were once so close to heaven<br>Peter came out and gave us medals  
>Declaring us the nicest of the damned<em>

* * *

><p>-1-<p>

He smacks against the floor and his head bounces. Pain cracks across his skull and his vision blacks, flares white, a heartbeat instant of anguish that's gone before he can register it. He blinks and blinks again and his eyes clear and he's staring up, a long way up, or maybe he's looking down. It's blue—why is it blue? Are those clouds? Is that…is it the sky?

He pushes himself upright, battling disorientation, shoving his elbow against a hard surface that's still too soft to be tile or concrete. He's not falling down or sideways, he's still looking up, and yes. Yes. It's the sky and those are clouds and he's sprawled on the hard packed earth of some field and there's grass in his hair. He rakes his fingers through his mop and frees bits of grass and earth, winces at the pull on his bruised scalp.

"I was inside," Sam mutters, pressing a hand to the back of his head and staring around dazedly. "_Inside_. What the hell…"

He'd been dozing, but this isn't a dream. He shuts his eyes and he can bring to mind the squeak of shoes on the bus station floor, and his nose twitches with the memory of that very special aura shared by bus stations everywhere. He'd been there moments ago. And now…he isn't.

What the hell?

He's got his phone in his hand before he even realizes he's reached for it. It's heavy and he stares at it and bites his lip.

Dean will want him to call. No matter how pissed he might be, he'll want to know. Of course he will. But the minute Sam goes to explain—what the hell is he going to say? _Fell into a wormhole?_ Dean's going to have questions and Sam, well, he sure as hell doesn't have any answers.

_I will leave your ass, you hear me?_

_Goodbye, Sam._

"Dammit," he mutters. "I don't even know where the hell I am."

He looks around. Even his bag is gone. He's got….thirty bucks in his pockets, a quick check reveals, along with a Swiss army knife, Balisong, wallet and IDs, paracord, and phone. And that's it. Everything else was in the bag.

He waffles, there on the side of the road, under an unapologetically cloudless sky. Birds flitter around and make bird noises. He wants to call his brother, but has no idea what he's going to say.

_Hi, yeah, I was at the bus station and now I'm not, no idea where I am or how I got here, no water, no food, no map or anything—can you come get me?_

Yeah, there's no way _that_ could end badly.

He wonders how Dean's doing with the case. _Dad's_ case.

He'll be okay. Of course he will. He's _Dean._

Sam weighs the phone in his hand. He should call. Dean will want to know. Even though they fought, even if Sam can't tell him anything, Dean will still want to know. He flips it open, rests a thumb on the keypad.

_I will leave your ass, you hear me?_

He stares at the entry for Dean. Flicks past it, then back.

_That's what I want you to do._

Hits connect.

When the voice tells him the number's not in service, he feels a new electric thrill run from his toes to the roots of his hair. Tries again, and again.

Nothing.

He looks up at the sky again. Stands there for a while.

* * *

><p>He picks a direction and walks. It's a cheery day, completely non-threatening in any way. He rubs at the back of his neck repeatedly because his hair keeps trying to stand on end. Goosebumps run up and down his skin in waves. He suppresses the urge to shiver more than once.<p>

The sun is trying to bake his skin and he feels the lack of water keenly. Wisps of cloud cling to the horizon and threaten to creep closer, but the day stays clear. It's cool but the exertion brings Sam out in a fine sheen of sweat.

He wipes at his face when he crosses from the last farm road to the outskirts of a town.

_Thank God_, he thinks, and goes looking for a gas station.

He's maintained his calm pretty well, he thinks. He didn't stop to throw up on the side of the road, though at one point he had to lean hard on his knees until he could get control of his breath again. He's not freaking out. He's _not._ He didn't even try Dad's number. He stood for a few minutes in the shade of an old oak and stared at his phone again, but he couldn't handle another 'not in service' message. He put the phone away before he could talk himself into dialing.

He doesn't need help anyway. He'll work it out on his own.

Sam wipes his face again.

He's been on his own before.

He finds a gas station after another twenty minutes of walking, and prowls the aisles for water and something solid enough to keep him going for the next few hours. The back of his neck prickles almost continuously and he doesn't recognize the song playing tinnily in the background. He's been out of the loop for a while, though. Pop music is hard to keep track of even when he's not running halfway across the country chasing his father's phantom trails.

His mouth is dry, and not just from the long walk.

The clerk, heavyset and faded blonde, smiles and hands off the key to the station's single restroom at his request. He locks himself inside with a certain sense of relief, and lets the plastic bag of purchases slide to the tiled floor on a spot that looks pretty clean. He splashes his face and peers at himself in the mirror. Trail dust and faint sunburn. He could keep going for a while yet, he thinks, if he paces himself.

He needs information. An internet connection. A library.

He gets directions from the clerk and his feet protest as he steps out into the street again and sets off, this time toward the center of town.

He walks for blocks, past rundown houses and little stores and a power station. He crosses a set of train tracks. It could be any town, anywhere in the upper Midwest.

He stops, footsore, in a tired neighborhood of grand houses and iron fences, and leans for a moment against the heavy walls of a burger joint. Local, he guesses—he doesn't recognize the name.

It's the tiny voice drifting from the alley at the back whispering, _"Please, please," _that gets his attention.

"Oh no," he mutters tiredly, shoving himself away from the wall. "Not _now_."

But it _is_ now and he's the only one here, so he goes around to the back of the building, where the trash and boxes are piled, and follows the whimpering voice saying, "Please," to itself, over and over and over. He picks his way through the mess, catches sight of matted dark hair, chalky skin. A girl, about seventeen. She makes a noise when she sees Sam, desperate and anguished.

"_No_," she whines, "No, please. _Please_."

"Shh, hey," he crouches down, makes himself as non-threatening as possible, "Hey, it's okay. Are you bleeding? Are you hurt?"

Her eyes are huge, and he can see the way something inside's been cracked, damaged in an unforgivable way. Hot anger coalesces in his belly, that old familiar hunger to punish an attacker, an abuser, a monster. Tears and dirt streak the girl's face, and there's blood under her nose.

"I can help you," Sam murmurs, "Let me help you."

She shakes her head spasmodically, tries to shrink away, but she's already pressed herself as far against the wall as possible. She whines again, a sick animal noise.

"Shh," he reaches out, carefully, with one hand, cursing its hugeness, the way she seems so small by comparison.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. You're going to be fine. Promise. I promise. Can you stand up? Can you try?"

He keeps up a steady stream of quiet words in his softest, most non-threatening voice. She's terrified, that much is clear, and even her previous repetition of 'please' has dried up. She whimpers when he hesitantly lays a hand on her shoulder, but doesn't fight him when he starts to peel her off the wall.

"You're gonna be fine," he says, pulling out his phone with his free hand. "I'm going to call 911, okay? You just hang on until—"

"No!" she gasps, breathlessly, and he pauses.

"What?"

"No, please—not the h-hospital. Please."

Well, at least she's talking—barely, her voice a quivering whisper that hardly makes it past her lips. But Sam will take what he can get.

"Are you hurt?" he asks, catching her eyes before she drop them. She shakes her head, pulling away again. He lets go.

"I'm okay. Just…just banged up, a little."

"Your head?"

She shakes her head again. Slowly, hesitation in every inch of her, she lifts her arms.

Rope burns on her wrists. Jesus Christ. _Jesus_ Christ.

"I'm okay now," she whispers. "I got away."

* * *

><p>He wants to carry her. Just pick her up and carry her, tuck her against his chest and shield her from the world. He can't, of course, but at the very least he can help her get someplace safe.<p>

"Do you—you should talk to the police. Do you want me to..." he hesitates. "Or I could help you get home."

She bites her lip, stares at the ground. "Home," she agrees, softly. "I just want—" she lists to the side, and Sam lays a steadying hand on her shoulder.

"Okay," he says, "Okay, let's see if we can get inside. I can call you a cab, you shouldn't be alone right now."

"Stay," she agrees, "With me. Please."

He can't stay forever. He needs to get moving. Figure out what's happened. Find Dean. But her anxiety is clear, the marks on her wrists livid. Right now, the urgency of her need is greater.

She doesn't flinch when he cautiously bundles her under his am, but she trembles continuously. He fishes his phone out with his free hand and starts coaxing her, stumbling, out of the pile of boxes and garbage.

"What's your name?" he asks carefully.

"Kara," she murmurs, after a moment's hesitation.

"Okay," he says, squeezing her shoulder a little, trying to be reassuring, "I'm Sam. I'm gonna make sure you're okay, okay? Everything's gonna be fine."

Under his arm, she stiffens. That's really the only warning he gets.

Big hands fist in his hair and yank his head violently backward, and a foot stomps heavily on the backs of his knees. He hits the concrete and Kara screams and he twists toward her, but he's just not fast enough. Knuckles smack his temple and it screams through his skull and he's twisted and wrenched further backward, feet scrabbling against the ground and he can't tell up from down, he's gonna be sick, his eyes tear and nausea claws at his gut.

Suddenly he's got a face full of material, dropped over his head and cinched expertly around his neck, and he lurches again, struggles to get his feet under him. He can hear Kara gibbering, desperate and terrified. An angry voice snarls at her and a sharp slap punctuates the air, followed by her sob.

He can't get up. There's no up or down. He's blind and he can't breathe. A kidney punch shoots dark red pain through his whole body and he crashes to the ground again, on his ass, and an iron grip crushes his wrists and begins binding his hands.

"_No_," he growls, "No!"

_Smack!_ Bone and skin connect with the hard plane behind his ear and _white_

* * *

><p>His hands are shaking. He's sore and sick and it's hot and dark and his eyes are open. Are his eyes open? He blinks experimentally.<p>

Yes. They're open.

It hurts. His back aches where he knows there's bruising, and the whole left side of his head feels pulped, chewed up and spit out, nothing but ground beef and chunks of bone. He's panting. He can't breathe. Every time he tries he gets a mouthful of material and he can smell the reek of his own sweat. Saliva's pooling in his mouth. He's gonna be sick. He's dizzy. He's thirsty.

No. He needs to get ahold of himself. _Now_. Right the hell now.

Shit. How did everything go so wrong so quickly? But his brother's still out there. He'll come. He'll—

And then he remembers. No. Dean's not coming.

Dean doesn't even know.

_Goodbye, Sam._

He bites the tip of his tongue and shuts his eyes. Pushes away the pain (all of it) and shuts his mouth, breathes through his nose. Swallows the spit and nausea, swallows it all down. Listens, because that's the only sense he's got left. He's tied to a chair and his wrists twist against the bonds almost of their own accord. Muffled noises swell and recede in his awareness, like waves at the edge of the ocean.

Kara's crying. She's begging again. _"Please, please, please."_

Someone growls, words he can't make out. Too low. Too quiet. Another slap, a thud, a sob.

_Please, please._

Her litany continues, endlessly, as Sam struggles and twists, wearing his skin uselessly against his bonds. Too good. Too strong. Someone knows a hell of a lot about tying knots.

Kara's voice climbs suddenly, a shriek like the wind, over and over. No more words. No more begging.

Sam squeezes his eyes shut. He promised her she'd be okay. Oh God. He _promised._

A door opens and her screaming is suddenly piercing and he flinches in spite of himself. The noise cuts off sharply with another slap and a gasping cry. The door clicks shut and muffles the voice of her abuser. Low and soft and controlled and so, so _angry._

A hand drops on the top of Sam's head and another makes quick work of the knots at the back of his neck. The bag or shirt or whatever jerks away unceremoniously, and he flinches from the sudden light, squints up at a large, blurry shape.

It hunkers down in front of him and in the poor light of a windowless room, Sam stares into the one face he'd absolutely not been expecting to see.

His own.

-2-

It's him, but it isn't _him._ Whoever—whatever—made this copy didn't get it quite right. It's too big, for starters, older and meaner-looking. Sam knows he can be a little bit scary when he's pissed, but not like…_this._ This thing is all shoulders and arms and massive chest, face too broad and hair too long, eyes hard and focused and cold. It looks a little bit pissed. It squats on its haunches and regards Sam wordlessly, elbows on knees, big hands hanging down. It cocks its head and stares, and Sam does his level best to stare back.

Kara's subsided, for the moment. Sam doesn't know if that's a good thing or not.

Finally the—what? The Sam-monster? The thought of it makes Sam feel sick and cold inside. The creature, the mirror-thing, stands up and walks a few steps away. A small table's been set up, with a few specific implements and, oddly, a bottle of what is apparently holy water, draped in a rosary.

Not a demon, then.

Other-Sam (only not, not _Sam_) picks up a thin bright knife—_Probably silver_, Sam's mind supplies—inspects it for a moment, then looks at him with a small cheerless smile. It doesn't speak, just strides back over, grabs his hair again, and yanks his head to the side. Sam's abused scalp _screams_, but he manages to bite back any noise, until the knife slices into the skin between his neck and shoulder.

"F-fuck! You asshole!"

Monster-Sam ignores him, eyes the weeping injury, the thin trickle of blood Sam can feel oozing down his neck, without any change in facial expression. Shakes its head and wipes the blade on its pants, then goes back to the table.

The door opens again. Sam jams his tongue between his teeth to keep any sound from escaping.

_Oh God. Oh God._

It looks like Dean. It _looks_ like him, but only in the same way that Other-Sam looks like Sam—bigger, somehow, older. Harder. It casts one sharp look in his direction and shuts the door before Sam can get a look at Kara. Can at least see if she's still alive.

There might be blood on the floor. He swallows again.

Not-Dean goes quickly to his giant not-brother and they confer quietly, heads bent, voices nearly inaudible. Other-Sam waves the silver knife around a little. The thing with Dean's face nods.

"Okay," it says, and the voice is all wrong, and Sam can't believe they screwed _that _up too. It grates, like skin dragged over sharp stones. It's dark as old blood. Sam shifts in his bonds.

Not-Dean grabs up the bottle of holy water and unscrews it, and in one motion crosses the room and flings half of it in Sam's face. It's _fucking cold _and he sputters and spits and shakes his head sharply, flinging droplets everywhere.

"Fuck!" He blurts, "Fuckin'—_Christ!_"

"Dean," Other-Sam says, softly, and it's the first thing Sam's heard it say and no, no, that voice is wrong too. Not as wrong as Not-Dean's, but enough.

"_Christo,_" Not-Dean barks, and Sam manages to glower at him from behind his dripping wet bangs, despite really, _really_ not feeling it.

"I'm not a fucking _demon_," he snarls. "That doesn't even make any goddamn _sense._"

"_Dean,_" Other-Sam repeats, more insistently, and Not-Dean keeps its gaze locked on Sam for another beat before turning away, slamming the bottle down on the little table with more force than necessary, rocking it and splashing water everywhere.

"Salt," it growls, and Other-Sam looks like it might be worth arguing over, but instead picks up a canister and then Sam is once again being pelted in the face. He catches Other-Sam's gaze and there's a terrible moment where he sees his own frustration mirrored there, and it feels exactly like falling. Sam jerks his gaze away.

"It's a trick," Not-Dean growls.

"Maybe," the other one says, placing the canister back on the table. "But for whose benefit?"

"You got somethin' to say, Sam, spit it out."

It shakes its shaggy head. "No. Not here. Not yet."

Other-Sam doesn't even look back as it opens the door and slips through. Sam's pretty sure there's blood on the floor out there.

Dean—Not-Dean—stands and regards him for a long moment with hooded eyes. Sam's seen this expression on his brother's face before, but not like this. Dean's face threatens. This one _promises._

When it moves to stand in front of him again, Sam can't help but lean back. He clenches his hands on the chair's arms.

In a weird echo of the previous doppelganger's action, it crouches down slowly and rests its elbows on its knees, hands dangling. Cocks its head and regards him coolly.

Sam works some spit around in his mouth.

"You're not my brother," he says.

It nods, after a moment, a slow and considering gesture.

"Yeah," it says, with a mouth so very like Dean's, and a voice like every dark thing Sam's ever hunted. "I think you're probably right."

It leaves him alone after that.

He's not even surprised when Kara starts screaming again.

* * *

><p><em>In the Impala on the side of the road, the night around them is huge and silent. Sam glowers at his brother. His stubborn, blind, asshole of a brother who can't take <em>five freaking seconds_ to try to see Sam's point of view. God, he's so sick of having this fight. Why does it have to be so difficult to make Dean see? If he could just make him _see_ what this is doing to Sam, make him _understand_ somehow…._

"_Okay, look," Dean is saying_. _"I know how you feel—"_

_That's too much. Too much by a long, _long_ way._

_Sam snaps, "Do you?" and feels a small, vicious surge of satisfaction at Dean's sudden gobsmacked expression, his rapid, confused blink._

"_How old were you when Mom died?" Sam presses, "Four? Jess died _six months ago_." He shakes his head slightly, swallowing back the pain of the memory. Crushing it all down, turning into anger. Into something he can _use.

"_How the _hell_ would you know how I feel?"_

* * *

><p>He didn't ask about Kara. He <em>should <em>have asked about Kara. She's not screaming again, at least.

He can hear her softly crying in the other room, and footsteps moving back and forth. Sam's worn holes in the skin of his wrists, enough to bleed, but it's no good. He can't get to her. Can't stop them from hurting her.

He can't make sense out of _any_ of this. He squeezes his eyes shut, wracks his aching head for some hint from the last few hours, last few _days_, that can help him put the situation into any sort of context. He can bring to mind the bus station, the coolness of the floor, the face of the girl—_Meg,_ his brain supplies, though how that's going to help him he has no idea—the low hum of conversations and the squeak of shoes on tile. Maybe he's lost time. Maybe he hadn't really gone from dozing in a chair to crash-landing in some field somewhere. Maybe it hasn't been hours since he last saw Dean, maybe it's been days. Hell, weeks even. Maybe he got involved in something that took his memory, and maybe it's the same thing that created these doppelgangers.

It's something he's never encountered before. Something none of them have encountered before.

When the door opens this time he almost doesn't bother to look. Almost can't bring himself to raise his head, and after a brief glance shows him Other-Sam leaning on the doorjamb, he drops his head again and goes back to slowly twisting his wrists.

The knots are getting looser. Just a little bit, but it's something. It's all he has.

Other-Sam sighs, and it sounds heartfelt. Sam can't quite help his flinch. The doppelganger grabs a chair from the other side of the little room and drags it closer, plucking the bottle of holy water from the table as it goes. It grabs Sam around the base of his jaw and tilts his head back, gripping with iron fingers, forcing Sam's jaw apart.

"Open," it says, and when he does it shoves the mouth of the bottle roughly inside. Sam chokes and sputters.

"Swallow," it orders. "I know you're thirsty and it won't hurt you."

He glares from under his bangs. Debates taking a mouthful and spitting it out, spitting it in the thing's face, but his body betrays him and he's gulping water before he even realizes it, with a desperation that appalls him.

"Good," it says, and pulls away. It straddles the chair and folds huge arms across the back.

Sam says, "Look, I don't know what this is all about. I don't but…let Kara go. Please? Just…let her go."

He doesn't know if he can take listening to her scream again.

It says, "Kara? Is that what she told you her name was?" There's a hint of a sneer around its mouth.

"Let her go. You've hurt her enough."

Patiently, almost delicately, it tips its head at him and says, "It's not a _girl_, Sam."

He wants to spit in its face, scream at it not to use his name, _Don't you _dare_ say my name_. Scowls instead, jerks his hands a little in their bonds. Other-Sam's eyes fall to his wrists.

"Wow," it says blandly, "You really did a number on yourself there."

"You're going to screw up," Sam snarls, giving another jerk against his bonds for good measure, "You'll make a mistake and then I am going to _skin you._"

It doesn't say anything, just watches him. Goes on watching for a while. Sam sits back in his chair, tries to return the calm, silent gaze, but after several long moments has to blink and look down. His skin is crawling again, chilled. He hopes viciously that he throws up all over the thing's boots.

Finally, in a quiet voice that nevertheless still manages to be flat, it asks, "How long ago did Jess die?"

Oh yeah. He's definitely gonna be sick all over something.

He squeezes his eyes shut. His back hurts and his head is pulped and he's cold on the surface of his skin, and the thing wearing a face almost-but-not-quite like his own is asking him about his dead girlfriend. Who died because of Sam. Who bled on his face and roasted on the ceiling and he can still _smell_ it, he never got it out of his clothes and he washed his face and washed it and washed it until Dean had to drag him away from the sink and he never got it clean, not really, not—

"Hey!" a big hand smacks him lightly in the cheek. "Don't you pass out on me, Sam. _Sam._"

He jerks his eyes open with a gasp. The thing grabs him by the jaw again and gives him a little shake.

"How do you—" Sam swallows thickly, fights his own nausea. "How do you know about…"

"Just answer the question," Other-Sam says wearily.

"Fuck you. _Fuck you._"

It sighs heavily and unfolds from the chair, lightly cups the side of Sam's face. Rests a thumb at the corner of Sam's eye, carefully, delicately. The thumbnail presses lightly into the skin.

"Answer the question," it says.

"I—" he licks his lips. The thumb doesn't move but the rest of the fingers squeeze, slightly, bone pressing against skin pressing against bone.

Sam swallows. He can't afford to throw up now.

"Six," he whispers, gaze slipping a little to the right, away from the monster with his face. "Six months."

It nods and releases him. Turns around and before Sam really registers it, he's alone again.

He leans over as far as possible and vomits onto the floor.

* * *

><p>He's dozing when the fight starts. Snatches of words float through the walls, sound a little like Dean (when he's hurt or sick or tired or drunk) and for a moment he can feel leather at his back , hear the sound of the Impala's engine ticking over, smell metal and old blood and vomit…<p>

His eyes open, slowly. He hears his own voice, snappish and irritated, cutting through the wall in fits and starts.

"…_right now, dammit…you don't have….we've got…"_

Dean's (Not-Dean's) voice is harder to make out, low and snarly, alien and furious. Sam pulls against his restraints before he realizes he's doing so.

"…_it's bullshit…fuckin'….Sammy no…."_

"…_perfect chance…perfect…"_

Dean's voice rises._ "…no…fuckin' mean it, don't you try…shit…"_

"_You know it's—"_

"_No! Goddammit Sam!" _

Something thumps the wall, hard. Sam flinches. The air stinks of vomit. He strains his ears. Other-Sam's voice is a low murmur, but he listens. Really listens.

"_You know I'm right, Dean. You _know_ it."_

Then footsteps, moving away. He imagines Not-Dean standing by the wall, breathing hard, furious and silent.

The wall thumps again. He waits, listens for Kara's voice. Hopes Not-Dean doesn't take it out on her.

He doesn't.

When the door opens the thing with his brother's face doesn't slip inside, just stands there framed by the poor external light. Sam sees blood on the floor behind him, and catches the edges of marks on the floorboards, in white chalk, that he doesn't recognize. Something horrible and arcane. He can see Kara's feet, her ankles bound to a chair, and then Not-Dean steps into the room and he can see her head hanging down, blood drooling from her mouth.

"Is she alive?" he's gasping out, horror in his voice, yanking at his bonds before he's even really had time to process what he's seen. "Is she—did you _kill her_ you asshole? Did you? _Did you?_"

The thing says, "It's a little more complicated than that."

It looks down at the table, almost idly picks up a small knife, hefts it briefly. Shoots a calculating glance at Sam.

"If I untie you, will you promise not to try and run?"

_Try,_ Sam notes bitterly. Not even a possibility in its mind that he might succeed.

He doesn't let the thought show on his face.

"You gonna cut me up like you did her?" he jerks his head in Kara's direction.

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about, kid," it says. Tired. Both doppelgangers sound so _tired._

So_ human_.

_What the hell is going on here?_

"What _are_ you?" he asks, forcing himself to look at its face. The set of the jaw, the grooves around the eyes—it looks old. Worn down.

When it sets down the knife and picks up a syringe full of clear liquid, Sam feels his eyes go wide. He yanks harder at his bonds.

"Y'know, Sammy," it tells him quietly, "One of these days you're going to have to learn how to give a straight answer when somebody asks you a question."

-3-

The darkness greys around the edges, softening and falling away in pieces. He becomes aware of his skin, of the tips of his fingers, of the bones in his shoulders. His arms ache in new places, and the ever-present pain in his wrists has faded.

He's not in the chair.

He drags his eyelids apart. Everything's heavy and the light that slides between his lids is muted, hazy. He rolls his head, pushes his thick tongue around in his mouth. Dry. His mouth is dry and he parts his lips and pants, tries not to cough, or choke. It's strangely silent, wherever he is. He'd gotten used to the noise, the screaming and the sounds of footsteps and muted voices. All of that's gone, now.

He's propped up on a mattress, he realizes as his awareness creeps back, his legs crossed and tied to the footboard, his wrists cuffed in front of him. He shifts, squirms around, and his wrists slide in the cuffs but don't _ache_ the way they should. He squints down, tries to corral his bleary gaze, to focus as much as possible on the ends of his arms. They've been wrapped in soft towels and, underneath, he can see the edges of medical gauze peeking out.

He groans, can't help it, rolls his head a little and pulls on the cuffs. They don't go far—a jerk and a rattle and he's stopped short. The cuffs are attached to the bonds on his legs. He's not going anywhere.

He pulls in air through his nose. Once, twice, three times. Struggles to get his head under control, to force away the clouds. _A needle_. There was a needle. The thing with his brother's face shoved a needle in the crook of his arm. Jesus. No wonder he feels like shit.

"_Sorry,"_ it'd said, and sounded genuine.

Just his luck to get kidnapped by the nicest psychopathic monsters in the world.

Christ.

He breathes for a while. Twists his wrists idly in their new bonds because it's become a habit, because it's comforting. He barely registers the action at all. The quiet is eerie.

His head doesn't hurt so much, he realizes. He wonders if that's due to time, or to the effects of whatever the thing stuck him with. He doesn't feel particularly high, or woozy. Just cloudy, like his head's been stuffed full of batting. He's such a cliché.

"Fuckin'…_Christ_," he mumbles, and blinks heavily at the sound of his own voice. He _sounds_ a lot more drugged than he feels.

He stays like that for a while, idly twisting his arms, blinking and breathing and trying to force the world into some semblance of stability. It's probably a good thirty minutes before he remembers that he can lift his head, and when he does he opens his eyes fully and looks right into the face of Kara's torturer.

"Oh _shit_," he mumbles. It looks so much like Dean. So _goddamn_ _much_ like him that his heart gives a traitorous little leap at the sight of that familiar gaze. It's a small mercy that he at least manages not to smile.

It doesn't sit like Dean, though. Dean is restless energy and barely-contained mayhem, joy in all things sensuous, a wild combination of violence and glee. This thing sits as still as a dead man, a half-empty beer bottle propped on one knee, its eyes hooded and considering. It doesn't move even when Sam stares openly, unable to tear his gaze away.

"You look like him," Sam croaks, eventually, unable to wrench the words back before they're spilling out in the open air. "Look like 'im. But'cher _not._"

It sits for another few moments, inhuman in its stillness. Then it blows air out through its nose, sets down its beer, and comes to sit on the bare mattress beside Sam, a water bottle in one hand. Sam peers down, going almost cross-eyed as he looks for familiar scars—the cut across the knuckles that needed ten stitches when Dean was fifteen, the spots from being spattered with hot grease at the age of twelve, the shiny patches of skin accumulated from a lifetime spent far too close to open flame.

None of those scars are there. But there are others, marks that Sam doesn't recognize.

Not-Dean opens the bottle and waves it vaguely in Sam's face. He makes an aborted attempt to reach for it, and the thing smirks slightly.

"Open your mouth. 'S just water, I promise."

Sam tries on a glare, just to see what happens, but it doesn't have much effect. He slumps a little.

"Better," the thing says, and Sam's amazed at the sudden softness of its voice. It's still _wrong_, of course, but it's…quiet. Almost gentle. "Open up. Come on."

Someone took the time to treat his wrists, and wrap them.

It's quiet.

No one is screaming.

He opens his mouth. For the second time, someone pours water down his throat. It's cold and he shuts his eyes in sudden bliss. He can't help it.

"Now," D—Not-Dean puts the cap back on the half-empty bottle and gets up again. "You think you can keep down some food?"

Sam hasn't eaten since the gas station, and he managed to throw that up a while ago. He doesn't even know how long it's been, what with the head injuries and drugging and periods of unconsciousness and the _extreme craziness_.

"Feel like shit," he manages, and now he's not so dry he can hear how much he's slurring. He just needs his goddamn tongue to _cooperate_ already.

"Yeah, 'course you do. Blood sugar's in the basement and you got knocked in the head pretty good back there. Come on, open up."

Sam's eyes go wide. A cracker is being waved in front of his face.

_Seriously?_ He thinks, hysterically. _Seriously?_

Apparently his captor is very serious. The cracker's not going away. He tries to see if there's blood caked under Not-Dean's nails, but they're clean. Very clean.

He gives up and opens his mouth. Lets himself be fed, which he doesn't think has happened to him since he was about a year old. The thing feeding him wears a look of calm concentration. Sam forces down another flutter of warmth, of _fondness._ He's tied to a bare mattress eating crackers from the hand of a torturer, for fuck's sake.

"Couple more bites. Come on."

He manages, somehow, and gets a few more sips of water as his reward. His stomach remains quiet, for the most part, and he surprises himself by not vomiting all over his lap.

"I'm not—" he swallows, "You're not. Not Dean. Not m'brother."

It doesn't say anything. Doesn't even look at him. Stares down at its hands and flexes them, slowly. Sam can see the veins sliding over tendons. Watches the strange scars catch the light.

The room is quiet, and no one is screaming.

No one at all.

Sam says, "Are you…" and trails off. He wants to ask. He _needs _to ask…something. But he doesn't know what. Can barely see the edges of whatever it is he's trying to understand.

"What day is it?" he asks, instead. Softly, afraid to break the stillness in the room. Afraid to bring back that terrifying creature he saw when he was tied to the chair. The barely-human monster that looked as if it could skin him alive without any hesitation at all.

The thing flinches. Says, "Tuesday," and cuts its eyes at him as if that's supposed to mean something.

Sam says, "Oh." Pauses. "What's the date?"

"The twelfth," it says. "September."

Sam wants to ask. He wants to ask but he can't. He knows the question is in the air between them and he can see the tension in the…in its body. The thing's body.

Only it's not a thing, Sam thinks, and can't go any further with the thought. The world doesn't work that way. It _doesn't._

"I'm not going to tell you the year," it whispers, and Sam knows.

He _knows._

"Dean," he whispers. "God, _no_."

* * *

><p><em>You're a selfish bastard, you know that?<em>

He's twisting his wrists because he doesn't have anything better to do. The thing with his brother's face—his brother, no, not his brother, not _ever, _please God not ever—left him alone without another word, went out into the dark hallway and shut the door behind him. Sam heard him pacing up and down for a long time. Eventually, he heard his voice, short and angry, and guessed he was on the phone with someone.

_Dad?_ He thinks wildly. _Is Dad around somewhere too?_

No. It's not possible. John Winchester may be a lot of things, but there's no way he'd stand by and let his son torture someone. No matter what the reason.

No matter what.

Which means—what? Dad's dead? _Sam's_ dead? Is this some kind of crazy vision? A future, a possible future, a merry jaunt through Hell?

Sam's leaning toward the last one, actually. Because that's not Dean. Not really. Not the man he knows, not his brother. It's _not._ Sam can't even imagine the circumstances that would have created that man who's wearing Dean's face. That would turn his brother into something so far from the Dean that Sam knows.

He bangs his head back against the wall, swallows. He's not going to be sick all over himself. He's barely got anything in his gut to be sick _with._

In the hall, Dean says something. Sam can't make out the words, but he sounds upset. Worried. The voice that answers him is sudden, unfamiliar and harsh. Sam furrows his brow, turns his head toward the door. Listens.

There's a man in the hall telling Dean something he doesn't want to hear. That much is clear. The rest? Sam can't make any sense of it at all.

Something tickles his lip. He licks at it, tastes salt.

Tears.

He's Rip Van _fucking_ Winkle. Walked away from his brother and didn't see him again until he'd turned into someone…some_thing_ else.

_I will _leave your ass_, you hear me?_

"That's what I want you to do," he whispers, and hears the echo of his own words underneath. A handful of hours ago. An unknown number of years ago.

He shuts his eyes. _I just want to see my brother again, _he prays. _Please, I just want to see him again._

When the door opens, he reflects that maybe he should have been a little more specific in his wording. Except that it's not Dean standing in the doorway, leaning on the jamb.

It's Sam.

Other-Sam, anyway, and Sam flinches away from the look the older man is giving him. Calm, thoughtful. Calculating. He's got something on his mind. That much is clear.

He thinks of Kara, and blood on the floor. Tries to imagine himself standing by, letting Dean tear her apart, and can't. He _can't._

"I'm not going to turn into you," Sam tells the other man. Shifts uneasily in his bonds when Other-Sam narrows his eyes a little.

"Dean told you, did he?"

Sam shakes his head. "No. I—I figured it out." Sort of. But not really.

Other-Sam's smile is humorless. His eyes glitter.

"Of course you did," he says, pacing into the room, hauling a chair over beside the mattress, settling himself comfortably. "We always were the _smart_ one."

He says it with so much bitterness Sam can taste it in the air.

"What _happened_ to you?" he whispers, can't stop himself, even though an alarm in his head is screaming _shutupshutupshutup_. "What happened to _us?_"

Other-Sam lifts a hand. "Don't. Don't you _dare_. You keep your little…" he waves a hand, "your _judgments_ to yourself, understand?"

Sam stares at him. Looks for the similarities, for evidence that it's still _him_ in there. The features are basically the same, but exaggerated. He's just…bigger all around.

Sam suddenly feels like a gangling kid again, skinny and untested. This guy, whatever his history, has _seen_ things and done things, a lot of which Sam is willing to bet he's not too proud of.

"Look," he says, "I get that you're…whatever, pissed at me or, or something. Okay. But…is Kara…I mean, you're not a killer, man. She's not…she's gonna be okay, right?"

His double pinches the bridge of his nose. "For fuck's sake. She's a demon, you idiot."

He says it so casually. It falls right off his tongue as if it's nothing extraordinary. In his whole _life_ Sam's seen a grand total of _one_ demon, and that experience nearly killed him. And…hell, it'd been possessing people.

Possessing people.

Possessing _people._

"She's…a demon," Sam says slowly. "In a human…she's possessed." He swallows, throat suddenly tight. "She's a possessed girl."

Other-Sam lifts his chin a little. Doesn't say anything.

Sam can't say anything either. He can't even think of any words.

The silence stretches between them.

Finally the older man leans forward. Reaches out, lays long fingers on the side of Sam's face. Turns him a little toward the light. Shakes his head.

"Amazing," he says softly. Sam clenches his fists, and waits. Finally the larger man releases him. Says, "What were you doing, before you turned up here?"

"I was asleep," Sam bites out, glowering. Other-Sam laughs and shakes his head.

"Asshole," he says, almost fondly. "I meant _where_ were you asleep? Motel? Car? Ditch along the side of the road, what?"

"Bus station," he snaps, irritated for reasons he can't quite figure out. Other-Sam's brow furrows.

"What were you—Oh!" he snaps his fingers. "God, I almost forgot—Meg, the bus station. The…God, was it that thing with the scarecrow? The Vanir?"

"The...what? What are you—?"

Other-Sam leans forward, stares at him so intently Sam tries to shift away. God, he is _fucking creepy._

"You don't know, yet. You…you _just_ ditched Dean to do the job by himself. You actually…you left. You actually _left._" He stares like he can't believe what he's seeing, like Sam's some kind of creature with a mind so alien he can't begin to process its motivations.

"I—"

"Fuck, you _left_ him so you could chase Dad and your _revenge_ all the way to California. You haven't even—you haven't even _talked_ to him yet. Wow. Just…this whole thing is blowing my goddamn mind."

He leans back, and Sam doesn't feel a whole lot better.

"Are you saying I should go back?" he mutters, just for something to say.

Other-Sam shrugs. "I'm not saying anything. You'll do what you want, same's always."

_What I want,_ Sam thinks bitterly. He looks down at his older self's big, scarred hands, where they rest on denim-clad knees. He can't stop the next question that spills out of his mouth, though he thinks he probably should have tried.

"Did you ever—did we ever go back to school?"

Other-Sam stares at him, eyes widening in a way that should be funny. Sudden color highlights his cheeks, and he shakes his head sharply with eyes fixed on something beyond Sam's face, something that isn't in the room with them.

Suddenly the other man is right up in Sam's face, grabbing him on both sides of his head, talking fast and low and intense.

"Now you listen to me you self-righteous little shit, I don't care what you think you deserve or what you think the world _owes you_, because I'm here to tell you you're not getting it, you can't have it, and the world does not owe you _jack shit. _You're _not_ going back to school and if you think _that's_ your biggest problem then you better go outside and find yourself a goddamn lucky star and pray to who-the-fuck-ever it is you pray to that it's not an airplane because I'm here to tell you that you have no idea what's waiting for you, _no fucking idea_ what's coming down the line."

He releases Sam almost violently. Points back at the door and in a soft voice adds, "And you know something else? Letting Dean work over that little girl downstairs is a long, _long_ way from being the worst thing I have ever done. And god knows what I still might do."

Sam stares up into his own face. It's possibly the worst thing he's ever seen. He's frozen—physically unable to move the muscles in his body. Up until this point he hadn't realized that was actually possible, that it was anything other than a metaphor.

_It's not me_, he thinks, in wild despair, _It's not. Please. Not ever._

"_Sam."_

They both look to the door. There's no ignoring _that_ tone, from _that_ voice. Other-Sam straightens up. Sam leans away from him as much as possible.

Dean jerks a thumb over his shoulder. "_Out_," he snarls, and it's a genuine _snarl._ He's furious.

Other-Sam folds his arms, glares.

Dean isn't fazed. "Don't you dare give me that look. I already told you. You remember me telling you? Get _out_."

He pushes into the room, trailed by a man in a trench coat that Sam doesn't recognize, and as they pass Other-Sam the newcomer says, in a startlingly deep voice, "It's a paradox, Sam. It wouldn't work anyway."

Dean throws up his hands. "Cas!" he nearly whines, and in any other situation his exasperation would be hilarious. The third man looks mildly chagrined. Other-Sam looks like he could start generating his own storm system at any moment.

"I swear to God, Sammy," Dean grinds out, fast and tight, "You don't walk yourself out of this room in the next five seconds I will _drop-kick your ass out,_ and don't think you're so big now that I can't. I'm warning you."

Other-Sam squares his jaw. "Dean—!" he snaps out, and Dean gestures sharply toward the door.

"Three seconds, Sam."

The larger man is ready to knock somebody's head off, Sam can tell—he's never seen that particular expression in the mirror, but he knows what it feels like, knows he's worn it himself on more than one occasion. Other-Sam finally flings up his hands and storms past Dean, but in the doorway he pauses and turns.

"You think about Gordon Walker, Dean. You think about what he said."

Dean scowls. "This conversation is over. _Go._"

He slams out of the room. Dean winces a little as dust drifts down. Sam breathes a sigh of relief that's apparently audible to the other two occupants of the room, who turn their heads simultaneously to look at him. Great. More creepiness.

"He uh—he doesn't seem to like me a whole lot." Even to his own ears, Sam's voice is faint.

The newcomer—Cas?—nods. "He has 'anger issues'," he intones, and the statement is so awkward that Sam can _hear_ the quotation marks clunk into place.

Dean barks a startled laugh.

"Chrissakes, Cas. He really doesn't need to know that, okay? Just—can we stick with the plan here? And can the conversation?"

"Of course."

"Good." Dean gives the other man a strangely proprietary nod. To Sam he says, "Listen, I got a couple questions for you, help us try and get to the bottom of," he waves a hand vaguely in the air, "This..whatever-it-is. You feel up to talking?"

_If I don't, will you put me back in the chair?_ He wants to ask, but can't bring himself to. In this moment, Dean looks so much like the brother Sam remembers, so separate from the man who shot him full of sedative and made a demon beg for mercy. He knows that he's staring, looking for pieces of the Dean he knows, the _right_ Dean. He heard it in the unexpected bark of laughter and now he sees it in the way the other man stands, the softer expression on his face, his body language. Dean's uneasy, concerned about what the other Sam said. Worried that he might be a threat.

Worried about both of them.

Dean sits down on the footboard, hands clasped in his lap, twisted to face Sam. It makes him seem smaller, less threatening.

He says, "Have you had any dreams, since you got here?"

Sam blinks. "Have I—huh?" Then he realizes, maybe _this_ Dean knows. The big secret (O_h God, Jess I should have stopped it_)—maybe to him it's not a secret at all.

"You mean like…like about things that haven't happened yet?" He's whispering. He can barely get the words out.

Dean waves a dismissing hand. "Not like a vision, no." He brushes it off so casually, so matter-of-factly, that Sam stares. "Like, about Jess, maybe. Or a guy you don't know, kinda," he waves a hand at his own head, "light-colored hair, skin's sorta…rotting? Talks real quiet, makes a buncha promises. You seen anybody like that?"

He's still stuck on _Not like a vision._ It takes him a moment to reorient himself to this bizarre line of questioning. "Rotting skin? Dean I've been _unconscious, _I haven't been able to dream _anything_. About anything."

"You sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! Why would I lie about that?"

"Alright." Dean licks his lips. "Alright. Don't get your panties in a bunch. That—this is good. That's good news."

Sam opens and closes his hands in the cuffs. "What do you know about…about visions?"

Dean shoots a glance at Cas. The other man has remained standing throughout the entire exchange. He meets Dean's eyes, briefly. Sam can't tell if he shakes his head but _something_ is communicated, silently. Again, _creepy_.

Dean says, "It's better if I don't tell you anything. Better if you don't know. You'll find out about it anyway, eventually."

"You're outside of your time," Cas says—declares, really. He doesn't have a voice made for conversation. He seems better suited to making pronouncements, sharp absolute statements that can't be contradicted. It's an odd thought. Sam wonders where it came from.

"I think he's figured that out, thanks," Dean observes dryly. Cas glares a little. It's disturbingly intense. Dean seems unperturbed.

"Wait a minute." Sam leans forward, as best he can. "It's—are you sure that's what this is? Maybe it's, like, some crazy dream or a weird v-vision. I've been…I mean, I saw…with Jess—"

"I know," Dean says, and the gentleness is startling. "Don't think about that, okay? It's not…that's not what this is."

"Well what is it, then?" Sam demands, manages not to shriek.

"It's exactly what Cas said. Someone picked you up, out of wherever you were—"

"Bus station," Sam mutters.

"Bus—okay, yeah, bus station—seriously? Anyway, yeah, someone snatched you up and dumped you here, for some damn reason. I've got a few theories, but you don't need to worry about what those are."

"Well if it's got to do with me, shouldn't I—"

"_No_," Dean says, firmly, fiercely. Sam blinks at him.

"Cas, get over here."

The other man circles the bed and Sam instinctively leans away. Cas looks at him, annoyed.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he says flatly. Sam isn't hugely reassured. He takes in the suit-and-tie ensemble, the unwashed trench coat, the long fingers.

"You're not a hunter."

"No. I'm a…a specialist," Cas says, glancing in Dean's direction, as if looking for approval, or reassurance. He's obviously lying, and Sam's eyes narrow.

"Oh yeah? A specialist in _what_, exactly?"

"Lotsa stuff," Dean snaps, irritated. "Can we move things along here, please?" When Sam continues to lean away he adds, "He's like a kind of psychic, okay? He's not gonna hurt you, he's just gonna figure out some stuff."

"What do you mean, 'psychic'?"

"What do I—Sam, do you have to question everything? I mean we need to know some stuff so we can figure out how to kick you back to your own time! That's it! Now shut your damn eyes and let the man work!"

"I'm not going to hurt you," Cas repeats, no less awkward the second time.

"Don't make me sedate you again," Dean adds darkly, and Sam can't really tell if he's serious or not.

Sam works his jaw, but he's out of options. He shut his eyes, cracks one until Dean smacks his bound feet, and closes it again.

He expects something. Laying on of hands, maybe. Chanting. What he gets is a deep, intense silence, and a sense of being stared at. His skin prickles, but that's it.

Finally, Cas says, "He is hidden. Lu—the…others, they won't be able to find him. But it's not the same as—there are no marks, not like yours, anywhere on his body." He sounds bemused, hesitates a moment before adding, "Whatever is behind this, it has its own agenda."

"Oh," Dean's voice is wry, "Goody."

"Can I open my eyes now?"

"There's nothing more I can do at this point," Cas states. When Sam opens his eyes Dean is already on his feet, heading for the door and waving Cas over.

"We need to have a little chat. Don't do anything I wouldn't, Sammy."

"You could at least untie me!" he calls after their retreating backs. Neither man so much as glances in his direction. His only answer is the closing door, and the sound of the lock.

-4-

Dean and Cas argue. They go on for a while, not so much yelling as continuously _intense_, so that Sam can make out only a handful of words every minute or so, none of which give him much of an idea of the nature of the argument. He knows Dean wants Cas to do something which the other man is insisting he can't, but beyond that he can make out very little. At one point he hears his own—hears the _other_ _Sam's—_voice, and Dean shuts him down so hard and fast Sam feels himself roasting in the backwash of his brother's ire.

With nothing better to do, he goes back to twisting his wrists and trying to process.

He gives up after a few minutes, because he can't.

In the hall, Cas' voice rises. _"I can't do what you're asking of me, Dean. Something is in the way."_

He shuts his eyes and struggles to bring to mind Dean's face—_his_ Dean, the last time Sam saw him.

_You're a selfish bastard, you know that? You just do whatever you want, don't care what anybody thinks._

_That's what you really think?_

_Yes it is._

_Well, then this selfish bastard is goin' to California._

"We're both idiots," he mutters to himself, opening his eyes and pulling against the cuffs.

What if he never sees Dean again? He's already lost Jess, has no idea where their father is…what if he's screwed up so monumentally that all he has left is this ugly, _creepy_ reality, where even the faces he recognizes are monsters under the skin?

Dean and Cas don't come to any sort of conclusion. After a while, the argument peters out and Sam hears a set of footsteps clattering down flight of stairs. He recognizes his brother's gait. Whether Cas follows him, Sam can't tell. The hallway is suddenly silent.

Sam shuts his eyes, strains his ears. Vaguely he can make out the sound of someone moving around downstairs. Faint voices drift up through the floor. Not angry this time. Muted, dull, but not angry.

He doesn't hear anything from Kara, or from the demon possessing her. Maybe she's dead. Is that possible? Can a demon be killed? Did they exorcise her—it? What happens to the body that's been possessed once the demon is gone? Somehow Sam doubts that they'll slap a bandage on and send her on her way.

He has an awful lot of doubts, at the moment.

His internal clock is all shot to hell, but through the threadbare curtains on the window he can make out the change in daylight, the deepening of color that signals twilight. Sunset.

No one comes back into the room. He wishes they'd untied him but he knows why they didn't. Knows, if he were in their shoes, that he'd do the same thing. But now his muscles are sore and aching from being immobilized for so long, and his wrists itch under the gauze. His stomach gurgles and he muses fondly on the days when he thought nothing of swigging from a bottle of water, just because his mouth was a little dry.

It hasn't been that long, he knows. But that life seems suddenly far away, as threadbare and faded as the curtains on the window…

"Feeling a bit sorry for ourselves, are we?"

Sam jerks, violently, eyes flying to the window. There's a man there, leaning against the wall in the most studiedly nonchalant pose Sam has ever seen. He's short, blonde, and just about all forehead. Eyebrows waggle suggestively and a mouth made for leering does exactly that.

"Who the hell are you?" Sam demands hoarsely, and suddenly the tiny man is across the room and clamping a hand over Sam's mouth.

"Mmf!"

"Now is that any way to talk to your own person Deus ex Machina?" the stranger _tsks_, and Sam glowers. "Keep it _down_, sunshine, unless you want Tweedledee and his brother up in here clomping around and shouting a lot. I'm here to get you _out_, you little twerp, so settle down before I change my mind."

Sam lets the tension leak out of his body, gradually, and forces his fists to relax. The stranger nods approvingly, perches on the footboard, and grins.

"Been having a good time, have we?" he chirps. Sam glares.

"Oh, don't be like that," the stranger mock-pouts. "I've been watching you for a while, Sam'm'boy. Not a real stellar showing here, what with the getting beaten up and tied up and shot up and just about everything else. You hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Do you _just wanna go home?_"

"Shut up," Sam growls.

"Run back to your brother, maybe? See his shiny face again, back when it _was_ shiny, and innocent, and oh-so-new?"

"I said _shut up._"

"Oh, I heard you. But see, here's the thing." He leans forward, hands dangling, and his grin is only slightly less creepy than the one Sam had seen on his own face a couple of hours ago. "Right now, it's monologue time, 'cuz Sammy, I brought you here for a reason. It's wacky and fun and a little bit complicated, and I knew that if I didn't drop in and _explain_ it to you then you'd take it the way you always do and run right back to wherever Dean is and latch onto him like a barnacle and then it would be even more ridiculously difficult to wrench the two of you apart. It's sickening, seriously. So I thought I'd better drop by and uh, make with the explainy."

"Explain _what?_" Sam's mouth is dry, and not just from lack of water.

"_I_ took you from that bus station, kiddo. Me. And that's where I'll return you, safe and sound, once this merry little romp is over, so don't you worry that terrifyingly giant head of yours about a thing. But the reason I brought you here wasn't just to watch you fumble around in confusion, as hilarious as that is. I actually have your best interests at heart." He lays a hand on his chest and wrinkles his nose in a nauseating grin.

"It's just that when I send you back, I need you to do one _eensy_ little thing for me, big guy."

"Forget it," Sam says automatically, and the man shakes his head sadly.

"Sam, Sam Sam. You're really gonna want to hear this."

"No, I really don't."

"_I really think you do._" And the stranger's suddenly in his face again, grinning like an extremely predatory Cheshire Cat. "You don't like it here," he continues, still uncomfortably close. "I know you don't. You _hate it._ It actually made you _physically_ sick, and it wasn't just 'cause of the head injury. Dean makes you sick, seeing _yourself_ here makes you sick, the whole thing is just one long parade of horror and fucked up and _wrong_ and it's like being cut to pieces from the inside out, seeing what's happened to your brother and to _you_ in the years since you told Dean to get bent and headed off to California to track down Daddy. I _know _it's killing you Sam. Don't even try to lie to me about it."

Sam turns his head away, but the stranger is suddenly, somehow, on the other side of the bed, still staring, still grinning.

"Now you listen close to this little bedtime story, kiddo. Everything that's happened, everything you've seen here, can be stopped. _All of it._ Easy. You can stop it, Sam, keep it from ever happening. You just have to make one choice. _Just one_, and you'll change everything. This whole future, _gone._" He snaps his fingers.

_Gone._

Sam stares down at his hands.

"It's a trick," he says finally.

"Nope. No trick. No need."

"Not interested."

"Oh really? So, this is what you want, then? Because I'm here to tell ya, the path you're on now, it leads right smack to this point, to that girl tied up downstairs and to the both of you with so much blood on your hands you've forgotten what it is to be clean. I'm giving you a chance here that _no one_ else has ever had. You can unmake all of this, Sammy boy. Easy. Just listen." He creeps closer, until his mouth is right next to Sam's ear. Sam does his best not to flinch away.

"Go," the stranger whispers, breath faintly stirring Sam's hair, "to California."

Sam blinks. He looks up at the other man, who's standing again and, weirdly, has a sucker in his mouth.

"What?"

He pops the sucker out. "When I send you back," he explains airily, "Don't turn around, don't go back to your brother, do not pass 'Go,' etcetera etcetera. You get on the bus, you go to California, and you find Daddy Winchester. Hunt down Az—the yellow-eyed demon. Get that revenge you want _so_ badly. Go back to school, get that degree that meant—that means so much to you. Have your precious normal life. That's all you have to do." He smiles with his lips, closemouthed.

"And what," Sam swallows, "And what about Dean?"

The stranger looks blank for a moment, then waves a dismissing hand. "Dean? He'll be fine. It's an easy hunt, he can take care of himself. _Sam._"

His gut is screaming _no_. _No_ to taking the offer of an obviously supernatural creature, _no_ to walking away from the brother he now almost physically aches to see again, _no _to believing even a word coming out of the thing's smarmy, perpetually smirking mouth. No no no no _no_.

He shuts his eyes, tries to imagine Dean, _his_ Dean, standing in the room with Kara, cutting her into pieces as she screams. Thinks of her blood running over his hands as he works calmly, steadily, pitilessly.

_He helped me,_ he thinks, twisting his wrists again, _He gave me water, he fed me. He took care of the injuries I did to myself._ But Sam shuts his eyes because he understands the nature of those actions, now. Understands the motivation.

Understands how Dean could slice a girl into pieces and then turn right around and clean and bandage Sam's arms, and not understand the dichotomy at all.

He wonders if it's like this for both of them, for his older self as well. Clinging on to his humanity with his fingernails, trying to reconstruct compassion blindly, in the dark, with rusted broken pieces that don't fit together anymore.

"No wonder he hates me so much," Sam murmurs, and the stranger laughs.

"Oh, that's not the only reason, boyo."

Sam swallows as best he can. His throat is shredded, filled with glass. His eyes tear but he doesn't blink.

He doesn't.

"I'll do it," he whispers.

"Y'know, Sam, I'd really hate to have to—wait, what?"

"I'll do it," he repeats, stronger this time, "I'll do it, _but_—"

"Oh of course there's a 'but,' there always—what is it about you Winchesters always wanting to make deals, anyway?"

Sam ignores that, because he doesn't understand it. "You have to save Kara—the, the girl, I mean. Who's possessed. Help her. Let her go."

The stranger stares at Sam for a bit, face flat and humorless, lips pursed. Finally, he shakes his head.

"No."

"Then forget it."

"Would you let me finish? No, _but_," he holds up a finger, "I'll let you do it. I'll untie you, and give you a little time. Enough to take care of Miss Kara and her unwanted passenger, if you so desire."

"If you welch," Sam says, "No deal."

"So this is the future you want, huh?" the stranger asks, voice quiet and dark.

"_No._ But I'm not going to jump through hoops for you. That's my offer, take it or leave it."

Sam does his best to stay still under his scrutiny, to keep his expression flat, and steady. It's not easy. The stranger's eyes are sharp, and older than his face. Older, Sam thinks, than anything he's ever seen.

"Deal," the stranger says cheerily, without warning. "Call me when you're ready to bounce on outta here." He snaps his fingers. There's no fanfare or flashing lights. Sam's alone again in the quiet, darkening room. His hands drop limply to either side of his body, and he gasps at the sudden movement.

His wrists don't hurt. He yanks away the towels and the gauze. His skin is whole, undamaged. His muscles should be _screaming_, in agony after remaining motionless for so long, but Sam doesn't even have to struggle to swing his legs over the side of the mattress, or leverage himself slowly upright, biting his lip when the springs squeak and groan with the release of pressure. He slips to the side of the door and waits for Dean or Cas or the other Sam to burst into the room, but no one comes.

He breathes, and waits.

The house creaks and settles. Finally, slowly, he turns the knob. The door had been locked. Dean locked it.

Sam's not surprised when it opens easily.

He pads along the short hallway, thankful for his quiet, rubber-soled shoes, and eases down the stairs. The house is dark, and old, and smells of mold and water and age. It's been abandoned for a long time, Sam thinks.

He makes a wrong turn and winds up in what was once the kitchen, stripped of fixtures and poorly lit by the moon. Dust and refuse crowd the corners. He backs out, heads to the other side of the house. Stops when he hits the threshold of the former living room and the smell of blood and sulfur hits him like a wall.

She's in the middle of the room, tied to a chair, head hanging down. Even in the faint light Sam can make out huge, complex shapes drawn on the floor and ceiling, though the former is nearly obscured by dark stains. He creeps a little closer. Kara's clothes are soaked through, her bare arms streaked in darkness. There's a table off to one side, and Sam sees a jug of water and the glitter of metal.

He stops at the edge of the white chalk line. He can hear her breathing, now, slow dragging breaths.

"Kara."

She doesn't lift her head. But a small moan drools out of her mouth, along with strings of saliva and blood. Sam winces.

"…don' know…'nythin…" Kara's voice is thick, slurred. She sounds like she's dying, though Sam's pretty sure she's not.

"Hey," he creeps a little closer, across the white lines, into the tacky, drying puddle on the floor. Kara groans.

"…don' know'bout'…Crowley, can't find him…stop…"

"Hey," he says again, and reaches out, stops short of actually touching her face. She flinches, though, and jerks her head up with a gasp.

"_Oh_," she breathes, staring up, and he sees that her eyes are black black black.

"_Christo_!" he blurts, and she flinches, but never takes her eyes off him.

She says, "_Sam_," whispers his name like a benediction. He sees water well in the corner of one eye, and after a moment it runs down her face. She doesn't seem to notice.

"_Sam._"

He takes a breath, deep into his chest, ignoring the way it tastes of iron and horror. Kara breathes, suddenly faster, and blinks rapidly. She smiles.

"Kill me," she whispers. "Please."

He's not prepared for this. At all.

Kara speaks quickly, as much as she can with a damaged mouth and missing teeth. "Take the knife. On the table over there. It's special, it's marked. Pick it up. Cut my throat. Kill me. Please. End it, end it. _Please_ Sam, if you ever…if you thought you could…_please_ Sam."

He backs away, toward the table. His hands aren't attached to his body, he thinks. He can't feel them on the ends of his arms. Only a slight tingling, a very great distance. He looks up, at the ceiling, at the alien marks he doesn't recognize.

Looks down.

The table is clean, spotless. He doesn't know why he expected otherwise. The tools are neatly arranged—small knives, hooks, a pair of pliers. Holy water, salt. They glitter at him.

On the right side he finds a larger knife, ugly, serrated, and marked all along the blade with signs Sam doesn't recognize.

"I don't understand," he says softly.

Kara's breathing shudders. He looks back and her eyes are closed, head weaving from side to side.

"They don't believe me," she whispers, "but I don't _know._ I can't…I can't…" she trails off, makes that noise Sam first heard in the alley, sick and wounded.

He stares down at the table. Razor edges grin at him, like teeth. His hand drifts above the blades, hovers over the knife, opens and closes spasmodically. He looks back at the demon in the chair. She's dropped her head again and her hair hangs down, thick and matted.

_My brother did that_, he thinks, and it doesn't feel real. It isn't true. It isn't true.

He picks up the knife. Its weight is peculiar, off-balance. It rests uneasily in his palm.

_Finish it,_ he thinks. _Finish what they started._

His hand is shaking. His hands never shake.

He drops the knife.

From behind him she gasps, despairing. He stares down at the table.

There's a book, with a red cover, and a leather bookmark.

He picks it up.

"_Sam_," she moans, "Please, please."

He opens the book, and in the poor light the words are blur and run, but he recognizes them. His voice, when he manages to find it, is a whisper. Thin as a breath of air and the rustle of paper.

"_Exorcizamus te_," he begins, "_Omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas_..."

He expects screaming. Expects her to jerk violently, to curse at him. To plead, to cry. To cling to the body, to resist this forced removal the way the demon on the plane had done. But she doesn't. Only lifts her head, with difficulty, blood running from her mouth, her nose. Her eyes reflect nothing and her lips part and she exhales, long and slow and trembling. She almost smiles, again, just for him.

"…_Humiliare sub potenti manu dei,contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt…"_

On another slow exhalation, Sam sees her eyes slip closed. Inky darkness slips out of her mouth and runs down the front of her body. It pools and drifts for a few moments as the exorcism continues, and Sam's voice is suddenly oppressive in his own ears.

"_Terribilis Deus de sanctuario suo. Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebi Suae. Benedictus Deus. Gloria Patri_." He never makes it above a whisper, but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Kara's body slumps. She's dead. He doesn't need to touch her to know that she's dead. The black cloud sinks through the floor with a noise like the wind through bare trees. Sam drops to his knees and covers his face with one hand. He swallows again and again.

He should say something. _"It's done. Get me out of here."_ He should open his mouth and say the words. Say _something._ But he knows what'll happen if he opens his mouth. He bites his tongue as hard as he can, and swallows against the swelling burn in his throat. It hurts. Oh God, it _hurts._

A voice from the dark says, "You know, Sam, it's reassuring to me that no matter what the situation happens to be, I can always count on you to do the _wrong _thing."

He stumbles upright with a tearing gasp, book slipping from his fingers to splat into the blood on the floor. Stares into the dark and sees his own eyes looking back.

"I'm leaving," Sam says, voice cracking. "You can't stop me."

Other-Sam comes a little closer and grins, or at least he bares all his teeth. He says, "Well it's a good thing I caught you then. Give me a chance to say goodbye." He looks at the chair, at the dead girl slumped in the expertly knotted ropes. Shakes his head a little. He looks unsure, suddenly. Younger. Sam can see the phantom of himself in his face.

"I know what you think of me," Other-Sam says, quietly. "Of us. But you're wrong."

"You're a _monster_."

"It's been said. By better men than you."

"How could you let this _happen?_" Against his better judgment he steps closer, fists at his side opening and closing. "How could you—_how?_"

His older self reaches out, rests a hand on Kara's bowed head. "You don't understand what we're fighting for."

"I don't _care_!" his voice sounds young to his own ears, but he has to try. Has to believe there's some part of this other Sam who can understand what he's saying, believe that he's just not that far gone. "The ends don't always justify the means! There are some things that are just—just _wrong_!"

His older self doesn't look up. Goes on staring down at the dead girl, hand resting on her head in some kind of twisted echo of a benediction.

Finally he takes a deep breath and nods, apparently to himself. Sam doesn't have time to ask what he's doing before his other self steps away from the girl and levels a semi-automatic at Sam's face.

"So I have this theory," the older man says, almost conversationally, but Sam knows his own voice and he can hear the faint tremor, the thread of disquiet. "About you. About us. Cas says…well, Cas says it's a paradox. That it won't work, that if I do it everything'll just…snap back to the way it was, as if none of this has ever happened."

He steps closer, slowly, and Sam slides back, lifting his open hands. His older self backs him across the room, carefully, both of them moving in tandem, slow and steady. Only one of them is trembling, though, and it's not the one with the handgun.

"You don't want to do this," Sam whispers. His back hits the mantel of an empty fireplace. He smells the ashes of long-dead fires. "You don't."

"Dean fought me," Other-Sam says, and his voice is distant, hollowing out. "He fought me tooth and nail on this. He said no so many times and, and he _meant_ it. He really, really did. Even after—after everything, _still_, he said no. He won't listen. He doesn't understand that this—" and for the first time Sam sees his other self's hand tremble, "this is the best way."

"It's not," Sam whispers, pleading, "It's really, really not."

"It'll all be over soon."

Sam says, "No, _please._"

"Shh." The muzzle presses against his forehead, cold and hard.

"Close your eyes."

Sam does.

"_Please," _he begs. "_Please._"

His other voice is soft. Sad.

"Goodbye, Sam."

The bullet slams in and red and white and white and black

a heartbeat instant of anguish that's gone

before he can register it.

-5: Epilogue-

_A man with fair hair and rotting skin._

"_What a mess," he says, and _tsks_ and shakes his head. "I'm afraid that these memories won't do you any good at all, Sam. I'm really very sorry._

"_I'm going to have to take them away from you."  
><em>

He's rushing up out of darkness, into a light that burns. He can hear shoes squeaking on tile, the rise and fall of voices.

"Sam," a voice is saying, "Sam!"

"Gyah!" He jerks awake in the chair and immediately wishes he hadn't, as the noise and all-pervading _stink_ of the bus station assaults him. He squints and rubs furiously at his burning eyes.

"Phone's ringing," Meg says, and he peers blearily at her before his ears register the familiar ringtone.

He fishes the phone out of his pocket and flips it open. _Dean_, the display reads, and he hesitates a moment before answering.

_I will _leave your ass_, you hear me?_

_That's what I want you to do._

_Goodbye, Sam._

He hits connect. Swallows briefly before putting the phone to his ear.

"Dean."

* * *

><p>-<em> The End-<em>

* * *

><p><em>Time won't find the lost<br>It'll sweep up our skeleton bones  
>So take the wheel and I will take the pedals<em>

* * *

><p><em>Lyrics are from TMBG's "Road Movie to Berlin."<br>_


End file.
